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Living wages for sugar workers are long overdue

Dec 13, 2024 Letters

Dear Editor,

Sometimes, in my moments of quiet contemplation, my mind would drift backwards to Plantation Bath, the sugarcane plantation where I was born and raised. In those moments, I would vividly recall the struggles of the people within my community – including my parents – who, from morning until late evenings, toiled each day in distant sugar cane fields to earn miserly wages not adequate to support their families. Yet, they never complained. Colonial overseers, at the behest of their expatriate plantation owners, denied workers representation, and punished those who expressed dissatisfaction. Then, came the Man Power Citizens Association (MPCA) professing to represent the workers. However, this labour Union soon proved to be ineffective in representing the workers, submitting instead to the exploitative explanations and viewpoints of plantation owners. It was not until the Guyana Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) came into existence that workers began to receive true representation. However, the workers’ hardships, though incrementally addressed, did not drastically subside or disappear. Out of such existence, Madhoo (Reds), my former elementary school and later cane-cutter friend, urged me to write something about his life. His constant plea led me to pen this poem which describes the hardships and struggles of canecutters – a poem published by the Guyana Graphic in 1967.

So early, so early, it’s time to wake

My bundle, my breakfast, I have to take

Out to the fields where the canes doth lie

Whether it’s raining or whether it’s dry

 

My children still sleeping and hardly did see

Their father so dear to work he must be

Turning and toiling in both heat and cold

From morning to night, till his limbs grow old

 

The workers all gather for tasks to be done

In the cold morning dew or the hot bright sun

Their twenties then clatter, the canes did fall

The ones who are lagging, the Sardar did call

 

My lunch did I take when my cutting is done

On dams in the fields under the blazing sun

For this is the way it still has to be

For a lonely canecutter, a worker like me

 

The punts are all loaded with canes fetched on heads

By jumping the drains and running on beds

The workers all jostled to fill their own share

To relieve their burdens of canes they did bear

 

The day has now ended to home I must go

With aching muscles and a heart full of woe

My children now sleeping for evening has come

No greetings for father whose work is undone

 

Then Fridays to office the place I must go

To receive a packet of wages so low

Of my week’s labor in fields afar

The cutting of canes is my own little war.

 

The above poem helps to contextualize the hardships of canecutters and provide glimpses into their lives then. Indeed, working conditions have changed, yet sugar workers continue to struggle to maintain their families on subsistence wages. So, it is commendable that today’s workers, with GAWU’s representation – through the current compensation agreement with GuySuCo – can realize increases in wages that enable them to improve their standards of living. It is also commendable that the government and President Ali, acknowledge and support the crucial contributions of sugar workers to the national economy – workers, whose strenuous labour once proved to be the economic backbone of the country and for whom living wages are long overdue.

Regards,

Narayan Persaud, PhD

Professor Emeritus

(Living wages for sugar workers are long overdue)

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